


A Million Miles Away

by roolsilver



Series: Star Cross [1]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Intrusive Thoughts, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 23:01:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16842196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roolsilver/pseuds/roolsilver
Summary: EoS replacement.  It's hard, being alone in the universe.  Drift has a Bad Day.





	A Million Miles Away

**Author's Note:**

> Song on repeat- Ghost by Badflower

It was a Bad Day again.  
Drift could feel the thoughts swirling in his head, like they were putting pressure on the inside of his helm. Like a tickle he couldn't reach, but he could hear it. You're nothing. He should have stopped Rodimus, stopped Prowl. He could have. Roddy listened to him, sometimes. If he had found the right words, set it in the right terms, Overlord never would have been anywhere near the Lost Light. Anywhere near Ratchet. He'd said no, but Roddy didn't listen, and Drift let it go. He always let it go. Because you're weak. And mechs had died because of that weakness, again. Primus, he'd nearly watched Ratchet become one of them. He had to get away, stop putting the people he loved in danger because of him. Miles away from anyone I truly care about. His spark felt tight in his chest, like his chamber was too small. They would be fine without him. Rodimus had to lead the quest. He'd seen it. If Roddy didn't lead, Bad Things would happen. Worse than Overlord. Maybe if there had been a different Third in Command, if Roddy had brought on someone stronger, kept better friends than Drift, then Overlord wouldn't have been an issue. Someone like Perceptor, with his clear head and logical solutions, would never have let Prowl lean on Roddy's pride like that. Pipes would be alive. Rewind. They survived a war, and died on a search.  
What if they never find the Knights, even with Rodimus? What if it was a false vision? What if Rodimus leads them all to their deaths?  
No. He had to have faith. Faith was all he had left. It's not enlightenment you're after, it's absolution. No. He wouldn't think of Ratchet, or Rodimus, or Perceptor. Wouldn't wonder if Chromedome had survived the loss of his conjunx. Or how if Rodimus had been a few seconds later...Overlord had had Ratchet by the throat. That first shot had been their last lucky one. It didn't matter that he was pinned down with his own swords. It hurt, but it didn't matter. The pain when his legs tore away as he tried to crawl back to the battle was nothing, because Ratchet was going to die, and it would be Drift's fault that he was gone, and he would have lost the chance to say all the things that he wished he could have said, all the things he would never be brave enough to tell him, because Drift was weak. If Rodimus had been ten seconds slower...  
Every Autobot you murdered is crouching on your back. Drift knew he would never be worth anything to Ratchet. To him, Ratchet was the first person who ever gave a damn if he lived or died. Ratchet had punched Death in the face and snatched Drift away, and when he woke up, he didn't regret it. Even after he had snuck away from the clinic when the medic didn't come back, he couldn't forget that. To Ratchet, he was just another junkie who had 'accidentally' overdosed directly into his processor, but he had never tried to kill himself after that, even when he was so low that Rodion looked like rough week, because Ratchet had put serious effort into saving his life, and somewhere out there Ratchet didn't want him to die. Miles away from anyone I truly care about. Bottom line, I've got nothing left to lose. He'd always thought Ratchet wanted him alive, anyway. Even when he was with the Decepticons, he felt like somehow Ratchet would notice if he was gone. You believe in everything. When he called himself Deadlock, when he let his anger at the priveleged mechs of the Senate and the Towers drive him to tear through Mechs until all he could smell was spilt energon and burnt metal, when he pushed himself halfway to insanity with stims and constant adrenaline so he could keep going and stop thinking, he had always remembered Ratchet on the Bad Days. When the Cause had changed beyond recognition, when Cybertron had been destroyed and abandoned, when there was nothing left to fight for. And ultimately, it would undoubtedly have been better for Ratchet if he'd let Drift die. What battles would have been won by the Autobots, what lives would have been saved, how much of the war could have been averted with strategic victories? Drift had no illusions that he'd single-handedly kept the Decepticons running, but he had been a weapon, and in the wrong hands the right weapon can do a lot of damage. Would Ratchet's hands have started going out if he hadn't had to use them so often? Would the Circle of Light have avoided drawing the attention of the Decepticons altogether?  
Drift shuddered hard and pushed back at the doubts pounding behind his optics, squeezing his hands together behind his neck until he could feel the pressure on his joints burning through his fingers. None of that mattered. Primus had given him this path, and he would continue on it until Primus was through with him. Whether Ratchet cared or not, Drift still would have distracted Overlord, however he could for as long as he could. That was his choice. Rodimus had to lead the quest. He had to believe that Primus had given him that vision for a reason. He would just have to do what he could from out here, alone. At least if he was on his own, he couldn't cause more trouble for the mechs on the Lost Light. When he was low like this, there was nobody to see him, nobody to judge him for this weakness where he couldn't even control his own thoughts, when he absolutely ached for something to distract him from himself, be it fighting or doing stupid stunts with Roddy or that throwback craving for the old drugs that would never fragging stop haunting him. His hands itched to be doing something, anything, but when he caught himself clutching the armor of his thighs so hard it started to buckle, he snatched them away. He wouldn't, not even this much. He had made a decision, and he couldn't control how he felt, and he couldn't control what he thought, but he could control this, and he would NOT. He paced the length of his ship instead, as small as it was. He sped up on each rotation, until he was practically throwing himself against the walls, but noticing didn't mean he could stop. What he needed to do was sit down in the cockpit and find another Decepticon signal to trace, fling himself as hard as he could at an enemy and burn off the nervous energy that was making his plating shiver and his fingers clench, but now that he was stuck in a pattern he couldn't seem to get himself out of it. History had taught him that eventually he would run out his energy and collapse, shaking and miserable and ashamed, until he managed to drag himself to his berth for recharge and a defrag, but that could be hours from now. He was wasting time like this, he could be helping people or stopping Decepticons or even just showing some aliens on a trade planet that not all Cybertronians were insane warmongering kill-machines, but instead he was stuck here arguing himself in circles on an empty ship, and before he could slip into another cycle of loathing and stubbornness and pain his Autobot frequency comm went off.  
'-bot Ratchet, under attack by-'  
Ratchet.  
Drift gasped in a huge invent, and suddenly he was back in control of his frame, scrambling to the cockpit and cranking the com-signal as loud as it would go while he started his tracking program and a silent prayer to Primus.  
'-significant hull damage, about to enter the atmosphere-'  
No no no, he couldn't lose the signal now! Ratchet needed him, he had to get there, he had to be close enough to get the comm.  
'-Alphekka syst-'  
Alphekka. Thank Primus. He hurriedly pulled up his starmap, searching through until he found the right star and immediately locked in a course for the most direct route. He wasn't close, not nearly close enough to get there before Ratchet made planetfall, but he had to try. Pain, doubt, the exhaustion that came after so much time spent whirling like a spark trapped in his own frame, none of it mattered. He had to get to Ratchet.


End file.
